Anesthesiology's success in making the intraoperative environment an extremely safe place, an accomplishment now recognized and emulated by other specialties, should not obscure the fact that important fundamental questions about the entire perioperative experience remain unanswered. These questions include 1) the mechanism of general anesthetic action, 2) physiology of the perioperative state, 3) safety throughout the entire perioperative period, 4) improving long-term outcomes, and 5) the treatment of acute and chronic pain. However, maintaining the scientific infrastructure that will guide the field of Anesthesiology into the future requires a core of well-trained and motivated Clinician-Scientists within the specialty who are dedicated to the pursuit of problems important to Anesthesiology. To help ensure a scientifically robust future for Anesthesiology, the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine (ACCM) at the Johns Hopkins University is submitting this application to support Postdoctoral Research Training in Anesthesiology. In addition to providing a critical avenue for their support, it is anticipated that this program will introduce a more systematic approach for Johns Hopkins ACCM to recruit, train, and develop the next generation of clinician-scientists in the specialty of Anesthesiology. Although this is a new application, ACCM has a long and productive history of clinical and basic research training in Anesthesiology which this application will build upon and formalize. Historically, this Department has relied upon mentors from individual laboratories or the Department to provide support for postdoctoral research training. A more formal structured means of supporting postdoctoral training will be more attractive to candidates and will permit training with non-traditional mentors outside of the Department who might otherwise be unwilling to underwrite the costs of a several year training endeavor. When combined with the considerable resources already in place for faculty development at Johns Hopkins University, an Anesthesiology Postdoctoral Research Training Grant will provide an outstanding opportunity for training clinician-scientists who will continue to build the scientific foundation for the practice of Anesthesiology.